What's new
Carbonite

South Africa's Top Online Tech Classifieds!
Register a free account today to become a member! (No Under 18's)
Home of C.U.D.

iRacing

vinodh

No brain, no pain.
VIP Supporter
Rating - 100%
96   0   0
Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Messages
1,969
Reaction score
613
Points
6,085
Location
Centurion
I noticed that there are quite a few threads here about racing games and decided to start one about iRacing. I joined iRacing a couple of years ago and stopped very quickly because I was also racing in an rFactor league and couldn't find time for both. Towards the end of last year, I decided to give up on rFactor and move to iRacing and started to put some effort in getting my A Licence (Road) and enter the iRacing Grand Prix Series.

For those of you that don't know how iRacing works, here's a quick summary:

- iRacing is subcription based and you must pay a monthly fee to be allowed to race
- All racing is done online with only human opponents, no AI.
- You initially get a small amount of cars and tracks and must pay extra for additional cars/tracks.
- Cars/tracks are laser scanned and are of the highest quality.
- Race series are according to licence class. You need to have a specific licence to race in a specific race series.
- Promotion to the next higher licence is based on a safety rating system and a minimum participation requirement (MPR)

What's really enjoyable about iRacing is that bad drivers get punished automatically by the Safety Rating system and good drivers will find themeselves racing against quality opposition. Also, depending on race series, you can race several times a day, 7 days a week. You can earn up to $10 per season/$40 per year which you can use to buy cars/tracks or pay subcriptions fees.

The top drivers (ninjas), race in the iRacing World Championship and compete for a $10000 first prize. The winner gets the cash and even gets flown to the US to drive a real race car.

Real racing drivers use iRacing. I raced a against a real GP2 driver the other day in the Star Mazda Series.

Here's a video of me doing a lap at Interlagos in the Williams FW31. It's my first lap on race fuel and is around 1.5 seconds of my typical race pace. The reason for that is the tires are still not up to temperature and the engine is still not at it's best:

[video=youtube_share;s37e-Qvf7qQ]http://youtu.be/s37e-Qvf7qQ[/video]

iRacing outputs telemetry data that can be interpreted by Mclaren's Atlas Telemetry software or Motec's i2 Pro. Here's a couple of screenshots of the data from the Interlagos lap using Motec:

motec_zps9cd8390e.png~original


motec2_zps33799bd9.png~original


The red circle in the first shot shows the difference in rotational speed between the front left and right wheels. You can clearly see that the front-left is locking to much. This is fairly normal since the front-left is unloaded at that point due to weight transfer. The top iRacers have race engineers that use telemetry data to improve the car's setup and overall race performance.

iRacing is technically demanding sim that requires a lot of time and effort to get anywhere. Track maps, damage indicators and other aids that you take for granted in other games/sims are not in iRacing. However, if you finally get to grips with it, then it is probably the best racing sim you can get next to a professional simulator.

iRacing is quite tricky to understand especially when it comes to licence progression and the safety rating system. I learn't quite a lot this past year mainly by trawling through the forums. If anyone here is interested in joining racing and would like more info and have questions, feel free to post in this thread.
 
Wow. That looks awesome! But seriously - where the hell do you guys/gals find the time??

[edit] PS - subscribed!!
 
I was thinking of getting into this as well. Raced in both SARL leagues (nascar and street (open wheel / V8 / etc) and that got too demanding. Having to spend time to set the car(s) up and practice, then spend 4 to 5 hours in front of my pc on race night, twice a week, just got too much for me.

I'd love to do this though, was going to build a complete racing setup at home. I just don't have the time to game seriously, just social.
 
I was thinking of getting into this as well. Raced in both SARL leagues (nascar and street (open wheel / V8 / etc) and that got too demanding. Having to spend time to set the car(s) up and practice, then spend 4 to 5 hours in front of my pc on race night, twice a week, just got too much for me.

I'd love to do this though, was going to build a complete racing setup at home. I just don't have the time to game seriously, just social.

A good idea would be to join the Star Mazda series or World Sports Car series. They have races every day which means that you can race when you want to. Also, the guys on the iRacing forums post setups for each race which means you don't have to practice as much. Obviously, those setups are not as quick as if you developed them yourself for your own unique driving style but they are still good enough. I won several Star Mazda races using shared setups with only 3 or 4 laps of practice.

The Grand Prix Series on the other hand is a killer. Official races are normally during the weekend and practice and setup work is critical. Drivers share setups but because the cars are so sensitive, you still need to do a lot of laps before you can find consistency.
 
Never got round to finishing my race setup anyway. Not going to use my desk like I did before. Bought a play seat and was going to fix another bracket for my gear lever as well as monitor mounts for up to 3 screens. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to try this but it'll just be a waste of a subscription, just as my lifetime membership fee I paid for rFactor has gone to waste.
 
I bought a years sub for this thinking I'd get serious about iRacing...

Unfortunately Assetto Corsa happened :rolleyes:
 
I bought a years sub for this thinking I'd get serious about iRacing...

Unfortunately Assetto Corsa happened :rolleyes:

I don't have Assetto Corsa. Are any leagues running it yet and are there proper championships/race series to compete in?
 
I don't have Assetto Corsa. Are any leagues running it yet and are there proper championships/race series to compete in?

The game is still in beta phase so there's improvements to be made.
The physics and graphics are absolutely fantastic though

There's a couple of local leagues over at Sim Race SA: Click Meh:
 
iRacing has had a few major updates recently that's taken the realism to a new level.

1. Dynamic track surface: The track warms and cools according to the sun's angle and will make some parts of the track a different temperature to other parts. Large fields of vehicles will also make the track warmer on the racing line and cooler off it.
Bits of rubber from the tires (marbles) will form off the racing line and running over them with your vehicle will cause loss of grip and will take some time to clean off. Debris from other vehicles e.g. sand and dust brought onto the track from another vehicle going off will cause your vehicle to lose grip.

2. The Nordschleife track in all it's laser scanned glory was introduced.

2. The new McLaren MP4-30 2015 F1 car was introduced. This car is used in the Grand Prix Series and will also be used in the iRacing World Championship Grand Prix Series and immediately retires the venerable Williams FW31. The new McLaren has all the features of the real thing (except for it's legendary unreliability):

a. MGU-K can be adjusted in-cockpit to change ERS deployment modes to either Adaptive or Fixed as well as 14 steps within these modes. This means that the driver can adjust the use of battery energy on the fly according to race conditions.

b. A Push-to Pass button is available to the driver to move the MGU-K to mode 1 and thereby deploy maximum electrical energy for a short performance boost. This mode can only be used for a couple of laps before the battery has to be recharged.

c. Fuel saving modes are also available in-cockpit to allow the driver to adjust engine performance in percentage steps to allow fuel saving according to race strategy.

d. DRS is available in practice and qualifying on every lap according to predetermined zones and will be available in the race if you are within 1 second of the car in front.

e. Fuel is limited to 100Kg/hour and no refuelling is allowed during the race.

I've done several races with this car over the past few days and took a while to get used to the extra amount of monitoring and adjustments that must be made during a race. Fuel usage and ERS usage must be constantly balanced against lap time as well as remembering to use the DRS when it is available.
For those guys that are F1 fans and interested in sim racing, I strongly suggest you give this car a go.

Here's a qualifying lap I did at Montreal in the new Mclaren. It's not an ideal lap but one of my better attempts:

[video=youtube_share;c6iGbVXXR2E]https://youtu.be/c6iGbVXXR2E[/video]
 
Thread necro, but for a good cause.

Who here has iRacing? Who here has iRacing? I want to give it a shot, but I do not want to pay for it if I am not going to put solid time into it. I'd like to play it (like one test session). I know it's a sim.
 
Why play a game like this when there are games like Project Cars 2 etc... Just curious!
I can't see myself doing the subscription plan.
 
Because iracing is a proper racing sim for the driver who seeks physics and realism rather then flashy graphics
 
Why play a game like this when there are games like Project Cars 2 etc... Just curious!
I can't see myself doing the subscription plan.
If I wanted something like this I'd stick to F1 2018 or a more arcady Horizon 4.

I used to do league racing back in the day of Forza Motorsport 4. but I want something way more real.
 
Ok... So why not play Project Cars 2 or Forza Motorsport 7. I many games that are REAL racing but don't need a subscription to play.
 
Thread necro, but for a good cause.

Who here has iRacing? Who here has iRacing? I want to give it a shot, but I do not want to pay for it if I am not going to put solid time into it. I'd like to play it (like one test session). I know it's a sim.

A one month subscription is only $6.50. The controller you use to play will have cost you WAY more...
 
A one month subscription is only $6.50. The controller you use to play will have cost you WAY more...
I use the controller for other games too. I suppose I can subscribe for one month, just thought I might get a shot on someone else's game. Hence why I asked for a test, because that doesn't count towards your rating
 
project cars 2 is basically semi sim. Forza etc are all arcade racers.

i used to join few nights with the guys on sim racing SA doing assetto corsa, but could not keep up, it requires a lot of practice. Knowing when to brake, how to enter and exit a corner, when to accelerate etc, and each individual car behave differently on different tracks. i was thinking of getting a G29 and jump back into some races. its extremely competitive and fun but requires a lot of time and practice and understanding how a car works.
 
@Bird87_ZA

You’re welcome to visit me and test out iRacing. I have most of the popular cars and tracks and you can spend a couple of hours doing some laps to get a feel for the sim.
 
is there a big following and team or something of racers in the iRAcing league.

PC almost ready
ive got a G920 but no seat and rig
 
im big into iracing... looking for a crowd, pm me.
 
I tried iracing year's ago with adsl, for those of you who race at the moment what's the connection like to the server's, ping etc? thinking about maybe jumping back in.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom